


Prompt: Plaiting

by EssayOfThoughts



Series: MCU Maximoff Oneshots [55]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Codependency, Fluff, Gen, Meta Analysis in Fic, Series of Moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-26
Packaged: 2018-05-29 07:38:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6365182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EssayOfThoughts/pseuds/EssayOfThoughts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Had they more time than three minutes Pietro would plait Wanda’s hair. As it is he has barely enough time to find new shoes to replace his worn-through ones and some fresh clothes for them both, let alone seeking out a hairbrush and having the time to comb out every one of the tangles Wanda’s hair undoubtedly has. He cannot even do it on the Quinjet as they fly, as he’s certain the Avengers would find it bizarre and irreverent to the situation and miss the point of it’s importance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prompt: Plaiting

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a prompt on my tumblr, readable [Here](http://essayofthoughts.tumblr.com/post/141739568445/hello-i-recently-read-your-prompt-fic-flight-and).

**i.**    
The first time Pietro learns to plait Wanda’s hair they are six years old. Usually Mutti would do this, but she has a horrible fever, and Vati is doing everything he can to keep the house running.

So it falls to Pietro to help Wanda with her hair before school.

“How-?” Pietro asks, baffled, and Wanda shows him with the long ends of her already long hair.

“Like this,” she says. “Three parts, and then _this_  one over _this_  one, and then this one has been left out of the party so it’s _its_  turn-”

Pietro is quickly nodding and his hands tangle into Wanda’s hair, finger-comb it to neatness and quickly make a plait. It is wispy and occasionally twists in odd ways but it is not bad for a first attempt, and he ties it off with Wanda’s ribbon.

“There,” he says. “Good as ever.”

 

* * *

 

 **ii.**  
The next _important_  time is when they are ten and have been hauled, coughing from the dust, from the ruin that two days hence had been their home. Pietro had plaited Wanda’s hair when Mutti was sick, for school and again before bed, and it is as good as any lullaby when setting Wanda at ease.

As they sit, in the dust and chaos and the remnants of their home, Pietro plaits Wanda’s hair, as carefully and neatly as he can, and presses a kiss to his sister’s shaking shoulder.

“We’re going to be all right,” he promises, and Wanda turns to look at him, plait falling from it’s place on her shoulder.

“ _How?_ ” she asks.

 

* * *

 

 **iii.**  
They are eleven when Pietro finally figures out French plaits. They’ve been with this foster family for eight months - far more than they have any other, and so far they’ve had no complaints or issues. The parents seem unsettled the times they go to wake the twins to find them curled together in one bed, but Wanda’s explanation of their nightmares at least ensure they haven’t tried to part them like the last family had.

Wanda’s nightmares had had her screaming so loud as to be earsplitting.

“Like this,” Pietro says, leading Wanda’s fingers over her scalp to show how he’s plaited her hair. “I had to collect it here and then cross it over and then collect more hair…”

Wanda’s fingers trace the shape her hair now forms in this plait and falls asleep against Pietro’s chest, peaceful as she ever is with him.

 

* * *

 

 **iv.**  
“I _hate_  them!” Wanda screams, slamming the door to their room shut behind her. Pietro waits a few seconds, until he is sure she has sat down in a (perfectly reasonable, he thinks) grump. Then he opens the door and slips through.

“What did they do?” he asks, and his hands are already in Wanda’s hair, finger-coming out a schoolday’s worth of tangles. Her hair is still damp and loose from the showers after P.E., and he fetches Wanda’s hairbrush to make sure it’s brushed out as absolutely as possible before he even attempts a fishtail plait.

(he’s still terrible at those)

It had been the fifth anniversary of their parents’ death not two days ago, he knows, and he knows too that this makes Wanda that much more susceptible to fury.

Wanda explains slowly as Pietro brushes out her hair into a smooth dark sheet, and he can hear her calming, feel her relaxing, see her finding peace again. By the time he starts fishtailing her hair her eyes are shut and she’s leaning against the headboard of her bed as Pietro sits beside her to make sure her hair twists right.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Hold these two for me?”

Wanda’s hands rise to take the portions of hair, and stay there as he finishes the plait up.

“Next time,” he offers, “come and talk to me when people start saying things as bad as that.”

Wanda’s eyes open, bright and dark and sad. 

“If I do that,” she says, “It will only make their rumours _worse_.”

 

* * *

 

 **v.**  
“Let me,” he says when they are sixteen and a half and Wanda’s hairbrush has broken at last. They are on the streets now after their foster home was firebombed, but Wanda still insists they go to school and school means being neat as best they can.

“It doesn’t matter,” Wanda says. “We should have showers when we get to school, make sure we don’t smell of the streets.”

“Let me,” Pietro repeats, and gently tugs Wanda’s hair back, ties it into a ponytail that manages to look neat even though it has not been brushed at all. “I will find you a brush,” he promises. “But now we should hurry.”

 

* * *

 

 **vi.**  
When they are allowed to see each other during the experiments the first thing they always do is hug. There is a comfort to that, to feeling their twin against them, warm and breathing and _there_ , nod dead or buried under the rubble their nightmares like to suggest.

When Wanda’s powers come through, however, even hugs are not always comfort enough.

Pietro spends hours plaiting and replaiting Wanda’s hair, helping her find herself again against the myriad minds of every colour that dance around her and try to suck her in.

“I am here,” he murmurs into her ear. And then, more urgently as he unplaits the braid to begin again. “ _We are going to be all right_.”

 

* * *

 

 **vii.**  
Wanda worries while they work at Ultron’s side. She twists her hands over and around, scarlet slipping out without her meaning.

Pietro sprints out, sprints back, a hairbrush in one hand.

“Relax,” he says. “We will have all our vengeance soon enough.”

Wanda relaxes as he brushes her hair out, pulls it up into the high ponytail she had worn to secondary school, the one which shows the angles and planes of her face most clearly, and makes her look like a fighting queen.

“Sometimes,” Wanda murmurs as he wraps hair around the hairtie to keep it all neat. “Sometimes this does not feel like vengeance. Sometimes this feels like foolishness.”

 

* * *

 

 **viii.**  
Had they more time than three minutes Pietro would plait Wanda’s hair. As it is he has barely enough time to find new shoes to replace his worn-through ones and some fresh clothes for them both, let alone seeking out a hairbrush and having the time to comb out every one of the tangles Wanda’s hair undoubtedly has. He cannot even do it on the Quinjet as they fly, as he’s certain the Avengers would find it bizarre and irreverent to the situation and miss the point of it’s importance.

He can see how wound up his sister is, how stressed and guilty she is feeling and he does not like not doing anything to help.

He settles for squeezing her hand and mentally promising to plait her hair as much as necessary after the fight.

 

* * *

 

 **ix.**  
Wanda does not think she has ever missed her brother quite as much as the moments when she waits for his presence beside her, his fingers in her hair, only to remember that will never happen again.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are much appreciated!


End file.
